So, ran this for my group. It was a blast, really. My group's from the Boston 'plex, so I had to maneuver things around to make them leave Seattle. The group consists of: Asher Summers, a cybered Chaos Magician; his twin sister, Talia Summers, an elf technomancer; Vorg, a Russian Death Machine and experienced death-dealer; and Riada Savriel, a Mystic Adept who was frozen in 2000 and just recently thawed out to a world full of magic and fantasy creatures. (Minor caveat: Riada is the character made by someone who wanted to be taught about the Sixth World through text-based roleplay, so made him a sheet and rolled with it.) As a side-note, I run both Asher and Talia, as neither of the other two players want to deal with the Matrix or the Astral. This means Talia works mostly as a rigger with a side of hacking, and Asher does a lot of Counterspelling and spirit summoning to back up the other two.
Before this, the group was run through On the Run; Riada, Asher and Talia were living together, so it made a nice point to bring Vorg into the group. Also, I was obliged to move the SRM03 mission stuff from having happened in NY to their home 'plex of Boston. When the biological weapon got released, Vorg's very awkward non-Russian fixer called him up and offered to get him, his group of 'newbies', and whatever gear they wanted out of the city for a bit til the CDC could contain the mess. And hey, while they're out there, would they mind taking care of a bit of business for a friend of his? Thanks.
The group loaded up into Talia's heavily modified Roadmaster (dubbed the Armored Pizza Carrier, as it had been part of her final exam - fuzzy logic and weapon systems to make a delivery vehicle that could withstand the Barrens) and rode out to Logan, filling the belly of a cargo plane that was waiting for them. After restless hours, they landed at Sea-Tac and looked around for a hotel; I gave them a list that had the Mulvihill on it, as well as about a dozen other hotels and motels. They picked the Mulvihill and rented out a week of rooms before Bull contacted them. They agreed to the meet pretty easily, got themselves naps, and headed on over to Underworld '93, where the twins started fanboying out at Maria Mercurial performing. They got in, checked their weapons like good 'runners, and filed up to the balcony area.
This was the only Pushing the Envelope section I did, and I'm kind of sorry about that. It was also the most entertaining section (the second-most was close, though) of the entire session. When Max Duggan fired and killed half of a making out couple, the group swung into action. Vorg showed them his plan on his TacSoft overlay, and they looked at him like he was insane. Asher spied the spirits patrolling, and Vorg contacted MacCallister to get the spirits called off. Riada dropped a stunbolt on the guy as Vorg took a flying leap off the balcony area; 600 pounds of heavily-cybered Russian collided just as the Stunbolt hit. The girl didn't get away scot-free; the timing was perfect, but Max had a twitchy trigger finger, and wound up putting a hole through her shoulder. Still, nobody was seriously hurt (except Max, who had several broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder from Vorg's landing), and they got Max and the girl to security before settling down to enjoy the show.
It's at this point I have to reiterate that I wish I had run other Pushing the Envelope sections. Vorg is... optimized for combat. He basically dominates any scene where he gets to use his guns. If I'd run it here as they went to meet with MacCallister, Riada would have gotten a chance to shine with his monofilament whip weapon focus being the only thing that could have hurt the cartoony toxic spirits (unless Vorg rolled ridiculously well and they rolled poorly), with Asher to play back-up with Stunbolts. As it was, well, combat was too easy throughout, and I should have tweaked the numbers some, but I was flying off the cuff and don't do well with mid-game tweaking in SR games.
In any case, they get to meet MacCallister in a room I decided was RF shielded; Bull strikes me as too good of a(n ex-)'runner and decker to leave things to chance that their arrangement might get out. It wound up putting their Face, Talia, out of commission from a massive headache from being shut off from the Matrix so suddenly. They accepted the job pretty easily, and didn't try to get more money out of Bull; Vorg had, by this point, ascertained that MacCallister was very, very good at what he used to do and that he was experienced enough to not fall for his Intimidation schtick.
In any case, the group was getting antsy by this point; they had a job, they wanted to rock 'n roll. But they got stopped by this Haitian-Canadian dwarf on the way out who gave them a business card and asked them to find something. They were suspicious of Laurent, of course - someone knew their business before they did. They agreed to bring him the Morel Stone, though, and Talia got to browsing the 'trix. The entire group had a good laugh when she found out where Fiona was staying - the same hotel they'd booked from the list. I made it a little easier on them since they had previously checked in and were careful about concealing their weapons. Talia spoofed the security system and had it accept their keycard, and they were in Fiona Craig's room. They got the notebook and started hunting down Jack Turner.
A little legwork and Data Search later they found out about the Ork Underground and Pirate's Cove. They decided that since they were tourists, they should look the part, and decided to show up for a tour, leaving Talia in the Roadmaster and taking her lightly modded Steel Lynx drone with its Ingram White Knight loaded with SnS. They hit Lordstrung's and ran right into the Skraacha and Reality Hackers tearing it up. Up to this point, the group had been very passive, but they were very excited about entering combat. It was at this time that I realized I had tuned Asher to be a little too effective; an Orgy spell dropped everyone but Neon Mech and Hez, who were duking it out in the center. Vorg strolled in and started beating the crap out of the both of them while Riada supplied covering fire with his Savalette Guardian's SnS and Talia's Lynx's Ingram put a few short bursts down-range to the preoccupied orks gasping on the floor. It really wasn't much of a fight, with Neon Mech and Hez having their dice pools reduced by 3. They both went down on the second Combat Turn after six passes, and then KE showed up.
Vorg very nearly screwed the deal with his Russian badass schtick, repeatedly referring to Tosh and Dana as lawdogs and telling Tosh he was on a leash. But Talia managed to hijack the call and negotiate with ADA Oaks, and got them back in her good graces and an extra grand each besides, plus the use of a KE combat hacker's Repeater Drone so Talia could continue to control her Lynx through the spotty 'trix coverage. After retrieving Vorg's heavily-modified assault rifle, they got into the OU and met Pip, and after some failed negotiation, Riada tossed him a credstick with his payment, and they got led directly to Pirate's Cove. In my defense, I was really very tired at this point and didn't feel like adding a new encounter with two left to go. After a cursory search of Turner's ship, they headed to the warehouse.
Thermographic vision really makes things difficult when you're planning an ambush. Asher gave himself and Riada a hole so they could bring their foci through the ward, and Vorg kicked down the door and hurled a flashbang into the middle of the room, rendering the orks useless. I put all six on the ground floor, plus both spirits, as again, we had been gaming for about eight hours at this point (lots of roleplay) and I wanted to get it over with. Ambush spoiled, Riada got a chance to shine after Vorg failed to do anything useful against the spirits, beating on them with his weapon focus. After dropping a Stunball on the group of orks, Asher went down to Stun damage, from wild shots from the downed orks and more accurate ones from the tracked drones. Talia put the Ingram's SnS to good use, taking down all four drones in the space of four passes with narrow bursts. Vorg used his Warhawk to execute the blinded orks, who kept firing wildly, and Riada danced with the fire spirits, mostly avoiding their Elemental Attacks and physical ones. Vorg got his rifle out and put a few bursts towards the spirits, actually managing to get enough net hits on one of them to get past their materialized Hardened Armor and finish it off, with Riada ending the second shortly after.
After a quick Heal spell from Riada, which nearly dropped him from the 9S Drain, Asher was up and they got into Turner's apartment. Again, Thermographic vision makes things harder for people behind walls. Despite the interference from spotty 'trix connection and lowered Response from the Repeater drone, Talia got into his 'link and ejected his gun's clip. Vorg went through the door, tackled him, and started beating the info from him. He didn't get a chance to try and buy his freedom from the 'runners; Vorg knocked him out after he told them how to open the safe. Fiona, Morel Stone, and Turner in hand (wrapped up in a blanket and unconscious), they left via Lordstrung, dropping off their package to KE on the way.
I felt that at this point there really should have been some kind of introduction to Moreau, because he sort of materializes out of the blue for the players; there's no Legwork dealing with finding out who Fiona's father is, and no reason for the players to care, really. But it's Moreau who answers their call to MacCallister and sets up the meet to drop her off and pay them, and that got them suspicious about yet another person involved in the mess. I also had Moreau drop MacCallister's street name, but it didn't mean anything to my players (sorry, Bull). Moreau asked them about the stone, but they declined to sell it to him, given that they already had a deal with Laurent Nazaire.
All in all, it was a decent 'run, but there were a few flaws, some of them my own. A well-placed Orgy spell absolutely wrecks most of the encounters if using the optional rule of Orgy incapacitating people if suffering a dice pool mod greater than their Willpower. I opted not to use it the second time around and instead put a Stunball into the orks in the ruined ambush, so Vorg would have something to do. There really wasn't a place for Riada to shine in the game, hence my wishing I had run the encounter with the Abominations. He excelled in dropping spirits with his weapon focus, but other than that, being a minor Pacifist, he's content to just let Vorg do the killing, especially when it's orks and trolls, who he's Prejudiced against.
Planning to run Hiding in the Dark to see if I can keep them in Seattle for the duration of their summer break from MIT&T. They might object at paying two lifestyle costs (the four of them share a nice three bedroom home in a nice part of Boston for 2600 each/month and don't want to lose it), but hopefully things remaing lucrative enough to keep them there for at least a few more missions.
